It's beginning to look a fair bit like Christmas

The house has been festivised, mince pies have been baked....and eaten, and now Christmas and all its promises is only one week away. This year, while Mum was busily working away on Christmas custom order dollies, I was in charge of decorating the house. I didn't do such a bad job at all, if I do say so myself, so I thought I'd share some of my favourite decorations as well as our spectacular twenty year old Christmas tree.

 We found the prettiest aqua-blue wrapping paper.

Each child has an angel with their name on it. Each of us has to put our own on the tree traditionally, but one of my brothers wasn't home yet so I had to do the honours.

With my now matured taste buds I can't get enough of these sweet little  fruit mince pies. Again, while Mum was still working, I took over the responsibility of baking the mince pies. Yummy.

There are so many little Christmassy reminders placed around the house.

I think my favourite part of Christmas is the lead up to it and all the feelings I associate with it. Holidays, brothers, games, sun, Christmas tunes, making, giving and of course eating. 

Only a few years back I was blissfully innocent and oblivious to how much my mother really had to do, all on her own, to prepare the Christmas that us children knew and loved. She now has my help with buying presents and preparing food etc. and I can see on her face how that help has made life a little bit easier at this busy time of year for her business and our house. It also just started to dawn on me how there was a whole world out there that may or may not be having a 'merry' Christmas. In other words, I have become much more conscious of just how many presents I actually need, how much money we need to spend and what the actual point of Christmas is. I have come to the conclusion that it is a day of a little indulgence, celebration of making it through the year, and of course a time to appreciate my family and just how lucky I am. What is Christmas for you? What ever it is, I wish you a happy holiday and hope it's everything happy and lovely.